Brave new world
04.30.2003The news today is interesting. Three tidbits: American forces are pulling out of Saudi Arabia. Interesting. European leaders (guess who?!) want to strengthen their regional defense force (outside of NATO). Interesting. Kim Jong Il thinks Bush was a "mean trickster" by focusing on North Korea's previous admission that it has nuclear weapons. Huh? Although China doesn't seem to think North Korea has any nuclear weapons. Interesting.
Where to begin?
Let's start w/ North Korea. First, I think Bush is doing the right thing here. Don't give in to blackmail. Clinton appeased Kim Jong Il in 1992, giving him tons of aid in exchange for ... what was it? ... oh, yes, in exchange for the promise that he wouldn't continue to build illegal nuclear weapons.
In other words, Clinton was jogging down the street and mugger approached him. The mugger wasn't armed, mind you. But he was gonna go out a buy a gun (any day now, really). He wouldn't go out and buy a gun and come back and mug him later if Bubba'd just give him some money. So Clinton hands over a fiver, sends crazy mugger on his way, and declares a stunning diplomatic victory. Hurray!
Did I miss something? Don't negotiate w/ blackmail! There's a problem w/ blackmail — the price always goes up. And if it's done in public, it encourages future blackmail. In the real world, it's one thing to pay off a blackmailer who has pictures of you cheating on your wife. Be sure you get the negatives and every last single copy of the photos. Then you pay the guy off. But you don't pay him off if he says he might go out and take some pictures tomorrow or the next day. And you don't do it in front of your whole neighborhood. Don't politicians watch The Sopranos? Or any TV?
I don't think North Korea has nuclear weapons. Sure, they claim they do. But do they? I think we have some pretty good intelligence people out there. I think they'd notice. Even if they dropped the ball, some other intelligence service would pick up on this. We're not the only ones interested. Japan? South Korea? Oh, and don't forget Israel's Mossad — the best national intelligence service on the planet. You don't think they're very interested to know if North Korea has nuclear weapons? They might sell them to crazies like bin Laden, after all. Don't want that.
I'm pretty sure that if we even suspected that North Korea was even that close to building The Bomb, the negotiations would start shortly after Kim Jong Il's nuclear facilities were leveled. Japan already announced several months ago that they'd do it if we didn't.
The quest for a nuclear weapon — like any blackmail strategy — is built around strategies of credible threats and deterrence. The post-Iraq political scenario changed all that (hence, Kim suddenly agreed to a multilateral meeting). We've demonstrated — like it or not — that we are willing to use force and that we will win against any force out there. Sure, Iraq was the shell of what was once one of the world's largest and most well-armed armies. But we rolled over them in weeks. Compare that to Russia's performance against Chechnya, a small breakaway republic. Credible deterrence? We just upped the ante.
Kim Jong Il now knows — as do all those remaining psychophants — that we're not giving in to irrational demands. We're not going to pay you off not to kill us.
Which brings me to the European army and the US pulling out of Saudi Arabia. First, the idea of a European army is actually pretty funny. I mean, there is potential there. But, come on! A German-French defense alliance? Against what? I don't know of any countries that want to invade Europe. To project European interests? How? The whole thing's a non-issue. Spain, Portugal, Poland, and other "new Europe" countries don't count on France to bail them out if the shit ever hits the fan. They count on the British Bulldogs and the American Cowboys.
Everyone's trying to put a positive face on the US closing all its military bases in Saudi Arabia. After all, it was a demand made by many militant Islamic fundamentalists, right? OK. So ... now what? We move our bases to Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait. Oh, and Iraq. Remember all the complaints about us being too cozy w/ the Saudis (it's an oppressive regime, they support terrorism, etc). Well, guess what? We'll soon have large military forces on Saudi borders. See, it's one thing to host a superpower's military in your country. It's another thing to have its tanks and infantry poised on your borders. That used to be called "gunboat diplomacy."
Which reminds me, there were reports a while back that the US was closing most (if not all) its military bases in Germany (we have none in France) and moving them to Poland and the Czech Republic. No longer in Germany ... but on the borders. Interesting.
Welcome to realpolitik, boys and girls. Sorry, Fukuyama, the world just got interesting again.
Posted by Miguel at 06:03 AM
Comments
Sometimes I think I’ve slipped down the rabbit hutch and have entered Alice’s wacky Wonderland. North Korea builds (or threatens to) nuclear weapons so that she can then blackmail America into paying her hundreds of millions of dollars to give up the weapons. I’d say this was a preposterous strategy, but can any winning strategy really be described as preposterous?
Posted by: Russ Campbell at April 30, 2003 11:29 AM
I don't know if North Korea has nukes or not, but I think it isn't all that unlikely. I suggest reading "Sum of All Fears." The movie blows, but the book is pretty spooky.
What it boils down to is: if you have a nuclear reactor, you have what it takes to power a nuclear bomb; if you have enough money, you can buy the machinery (which is apparently the same tools used by optometrists to make eye-glasses) to make the parts; and if you have a library card, you can find out the stats and parts needed to make a multi-stage nuclear device.
In the afterward of SOAF, Clancy reports that when he was doing his research for the novel, he wrote to NORAD and asked what sort of technical help they could give him. They sent him full schematical information on how to build a nuclear bomb. He was shocked, but it turns out that this info is available everywhere.
The issue is nuclear material, wealth, and the will to do it.
Stay scared, true-believer.
Love,
Micah.
Posted by: Micah at May 1, 2003 01:53 AM
I would just like to add two things:
1. N.Korea is one of the most closed countries in the world. The only country that has any access to N.Korea, China, is not exactly sharing their intelligence with the US.
2. Has everyone forgotten about the policy of nuclear deterrence and M.A.D.(mutually assured destruction)? The USSR had 14,000 weapons and the US had 12,000 but not one was ever used, because both sides knew no one wins a nuclear war. This begs the question--so what if N.Korea has a nuclear weapon? They'll never use it unless threatened--which is exactly what is happening.
A real solution: Let in the most powerful weapons in our arsenal, American business and American culture.
Posted by: Patrick at May 2, 2003 09:58 AM
I agree w/ the last part, about using our culture/values as a weapon. I think liberal values are superior to all others (for so many reasons). But I'm not sure a nuclear N Korea is a safe bet. The theory of MAD worked because the US and USSR were ruled by rational leaderships w/ some checks on their behavior. Kim Jong Il is not (in many people's estimation) a rational leader nor does he have any checks on his behavior.
Keep in mind that being able to sometimes predict a leader's behavior doesn't mean the leader is rational (as in: a rational actor model). And that's the problem. And while N Korea is a closed society, no society is that closed anymore. Not w/ spy satellites that can read newspapers headlines.
Posted by: miguel at May 2, 2003 01:45 PM